Career ladder

National oil company Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil and gas company, boasting about 58,000 employees. Huda Ghoson, General Manager of Training and Development, leads one of the Saudi Aramco organisations responsible for attracting, retaining and developing staff. For her, the company offers so much more than just an attractive salary.

You first joined Saudi Aramco in 1981. Can you give us an insight into how recruitment, training and career development has changed at the company?

Huda Ghoson. Over the past 30 years, recruitment, training and development have undergone major transformation in line with the evolving business, economic and social climate. While we continued to maintain a long-term focus and clear vision for our Human Resources strategy, the transformation of our approach was necessitated by the changing business environment, demographics and traits of the new generation of workers. For example, in the past, the focus of attraction and retention was mainly on generous pay and other tangible benefits. Today, employees do expect competitive pay, but it is not the only factor for accepting employment. More so, they expect the company to provide challenging work assignments, learning and development opportunities, clearly mapped-out career progression, and a voice in the decision-making process. We are also more selective in our recruitment practices today, and apply rigorous assessment techniques to assure the quality and skills of candidates and the long term return on our huge investment in human resources.

As for training and development, in the past, programmes were designed to build technical skills with limited focus on soft skills and leadership competencies. Employees had a limited role in their development and the decision making process. Today, young professionals are encouraged from day one to take ownership of the process and to assume a driver's seat in the roadmap of their careers. The emphasis is that continuous development is their own responsibility and that they need to take active roles to ensure that their learning objectives and career and business goals are aligned. Self-development is an ongoing enterprise at Saudi Aramco that takes different forms and is practiced on a daily basis at all levels of the organization. The overall program is supported by ongoing mentoring, coaching and knowledge transfer processes, and strong commitment from the management team to monitor progress and assure the availability of skills at all times. Today, our HR management and development processes are more participative compared to approaches of the past.

We hear a lot about skills shortages in the O&G industry. Are there areas of Saudi Aramco lacking particular skills - geologists and scientists, for instance?
HG. The industry has for the past few years experienced difficulty in finding and retaining skilled manpower. This is partly due to the permanent loss of professionals during previous downturns, the industry image and declining university enrollment in key disciplines. Today, the pool of specialists is shrinking, and the average age of an employee in the oil and gas industry is close to 50.

Saudi Aramco anticipated this shortage of skills a few years ago and is able to address its staffing needs through implementation of a long-term strategy and investment in human resources development. More than 80 percent of our recruitment needs come from our training programs, which produce skilled and professional workers (annually) with different disciplines based on business needs.

What are the success factors of attracting and retaining young talent in Saudi Aramco?

HG. The success of our HR strategy is attributed to three main factors. The first factor is building on the solid reputation of the company. In fact, this constitutes the cornerstone of the company's attraction and retention policies. Young talent is attracted and proud to join Saudi Aramco because of the company's track record of successful performance, solid corporate values and governance, its prominent and influential position in the local and global economies, its strong social responsibility, fair and inclusive HR policies, a well-balanced approach to maximising return on investments, the wellbeing of its employees and the environment in which it operates.

The second factor is our heavy investment in the training, development and management of our people, that is generously supported and clearly championed by the company. The third factor is the total reward package. Saudi Aramco's total reward policies and programmes are designed to satisfy every stage of the employee's personal and professional growth starting with competitive salaries, a comprehensive healthcare programme for the employee and his/her family, holidays and vacations, home loans, savings and pension plans, community services and safety and security. These policies assure the employee's long term financial security, health and wellbeing and work-life balance so that they can focus on their work and achieve the highest levels of productivity.

The oil and gas industry globally faces the dilemma of experienced and knowledgeable employees reaching retirement. Is this is a problem for you and can you explain what is being done to transfer skills and experience to the next generation who will be tomorrow's leaders?

HG. We are addressing this issue through our long-term talent management strategy to build, develop and maintain a pipeline of skilled and prepared leaders from within the company. Saudi Aramco has a formal succession planning process that is applied consistently throughout the organisation. This process involves talent reviews and assessment of high potential, ongoing career and leadership development plans, including exclusive action learning opportunities targeting top performers with high potential.

Moreover, we employ a variety of methods and assessments for identifying, evaluating and ranking candidates for leadership positions. Once these individuals have been identified, they must be placed into the company's leadership pipeline and their progress and potential tracked on a regular basis. Succession planning is a process by which we identify and plan for the replacement of key leaders with 'ready now' successors when needed. In addition, we use multiple approaches to capture the experience and know-how of experienced staff that involves ongoing feedback from coaches, mentorship programmes, and formal knowledge transfer processes. These strategies are supported by a strong commitment from the management team to monitor progress and assure the availability of skills at all times.

And finally, we believe that the better the company does in recruiting and selecting talented employees, the greater the internal talent pool from which to choose future leaders. Since its early days in the 1940s, the company has focused on developing Saudi nationals to safeguard against labour market fluctuations. Saudisation efforts picked up dramatically in the mid-fifties. We grew from fewer than 20,000 employees in 1955, to about 58,000 today. At present, 88 percent of our employees are Saudis. It is worth noting that our top management and operations personnel are all Saudis. This is a remarkable achievement that is only possible due to careful planning and commitment to a strategic goal.

What is Saudi Aramco doing to encourage more young women into the industry? What was it that first attracted you to Saudi Aramco 30 years ago?

HG. To encourage more young women into the industry, Saudi Aramco has demonstrated genuine and pragmatic efforts in leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities for growth and advancement based on meritocracy and contribution. Also, the company ensures that policies and programmes are inclusive and conducive to an increasingly diverse workplace. In other words, our policies don't only provide equal benefits and wages, but they also consider the family lifecycle and support the work-life balance; thus meeting the needs and expectations of all employees. Moreover, we realise that some of the technical and engineering disciplines required in the company are not available or delivered by the local education system for women. Therefore, to attract more women to the industry, the company provides training and scholarships to young women to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in technical areas related to our core business at top universities around the globe. 

As for my own experience, I believe I was attracted to Saudi Aramco by the learning and growth opportunities, diversity of the workforce, professional work environment, access to mentors and an open network of professional staff, and above all, corporate culture, values and work ethics.

And how do you attract skilled O&G professionals from abroad? What benefits do you offer?
HG. A total comprehensive and compelling employment value proposition (EVP) is the foundation of the talent attraction and retention strategy locally and globally. For expatriate oil and gas professionals, the focus would be on our technology-savvy work environment, challenging and rewarding projects and work assignments, competitive pay package, health care programmes, quality international standard education for their children, safety and security, lifestyle including travel and leisure, and family-friendly policies and community programmes. The effectiveness of our EVP is evidenced by the low turnover rate among expatriates and their long service with the company.

With energy demand forecast to soar in the next 20 years as emerging economies become more reliant on hydrocarbons, how is Saudi Aramco planning for the future and to ensure the company has the talent to cope with rising demand?

HD. Building organisational capabilities in Saudi Aramco to meet future energy demand starts with a structured and integrated process for talent management and development. The process consists of five fundamental phases, and begins with applying a sophisticated workforce planning model to forecast labour requirements for every business plan period and up to 30 years into the future, using hypothetical scenarios. The model identifies the required skills and recruitment targets. When the plans are approved, the second phase begins with staffing activities. Selection criteria are developed, monitored and applied consistently to assure quality candidates and their learning potential. Candidates go through psychometric and aptitude tests to filter the pool and select the top promising applicants. We also sponsor a large number of high school students and train them in our facilities for skilled jobs, or send them to local or international universities based on business needs. We currently have about 7000 students attending full-time academic/vocational training or university education.

Once employees join us, an individual development plan is designed to build a solid start with strong foundations by going through an intensive, immersive and integrated learning experience - and this is the third phase. The goal is to substantially compress the cycle time for turning new recruits into contributing team members of the workforce. This is the most critical step in transforming our young recruits into competent professionals and effective leaders.

The fourth phase is the performance management process whereby supervisors play a major role in driving, managing, monitoring and rewarding the desired performance. The third and fourth phases are ongoing and mutually inclusive processes that don't stop until the employee ends his/her service with the company.

And finally, the fifth step is the succession planning process that is applied consistently throughout the company. This process involves talent reviews, assessment of high potential and knowledge transfer plans. This process is helping us address any retirement bulge and an ageing workforce by ensuring qualified employees are ready when they are needed. All five phases of the integrated talent management architecture are held together by competency models that provide consistent framework, language and a set of expectations.

The last two years have seen oil prices hit $147 a barrel before plummeting to just $35 a barrel and then rising to today's current levels. How do you deal with the impact this has on staff numbers and staff investment because projects could get shelved and the headcount reduced?

HD. The industry has learned that the current skills shortage was caused by layoffs during previous downturns. So it does not make business sense to let our critical staff go, especially after investing in their training and development, when we know that an upturn in the business cycle could be just around the corner. As mentioned earlier, maintaining long-term strategic focus and policies that do not fluctuate with the global economy has helped us build solid organisational capabilities, and assured the readiness of our workforce and availability of skills when they are most needed - during bad times as well as good times. Our strategies are effective because they run consistently, regardless of the ebb and flow of the business cycle.

Talent management in Saudi Aramco is considered a strategic imperative and business necessity that requires a clear vision and focus. It has always been at the top of our priorities despite economic conditions, and is placed at the pinnacle of our business goals along with maximising profitability and sustaining reliability of supply.

What gives you the most pleasure from your job?

HD. I get most pleasure when I feel I'm adding value to the organisation and helping people tackle challenges and achieve excellent results. My contentment comes from serving and guiding my team and organisation and facilitating the needed resources to accomplish personal and business goals. My mission is to lead, guide and serve. And that's what makes my job most exciting, challenging and gratifying. 

Factoid:

88 percent of employees are Saudis